For sixteen years, Haruki Aoi's world had been ceilings.
White hospital ceilings with flickering lights that hummed like broken insects. Bedroom ceilings painted pale blue, decorated with a bunch of glow-in-the-dark star stickers his little brother slapped on crooked.
Other kids had childhood memories first time riding a bike, first sports match, first kiss.
Haruki's childhood? Needles, pills, doctors whispering behind curtains.
His body was weak. His bones felt hollow. Walking twenty steps was his version of climbing Mount Everest. And when he did it once, the nurses clapped like he'd just cured cancer. Pathetic, right?
He remembered overhearing a nurse once: "It's a miracle he's even alive."
A miracle? Yeah, right. If this was a miracle, then miracles sucked.
For Haruki, life wasn't life. It was a prison. A prison with white walls, tubes, and ceilings that never changed.
The only windows he had were books and games. RPGs where you could slay dragons. Light novels where the sickly kid became the chosen hero. Console games his parents bought whenever his health tanked so badly he couldn't even read.
When he read, when he played he wasn't Haruki the dying boy.
He was a swordsman, a rogue, a mage. He was someone who mattered.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when the machines beeped and the pain made him curl up, he whispered:
"If I can't live here… then let me live there. Please."
Of course, nobody answered. The ceiling just stared back at him like always.
Makoto, his younger brother, didn't get it. The guy was a walking ball of energy running, shouting, kicking soccer balls like he had ten lungs instead of two. Every day, he barged into Haruki's room, dumped his stories on him, and laughed.
"See? You're part of this too, even if you can't come," Makoto would say.
And Haruki would smile. Pretend it didn't hurt. Pretend he wasn't jealous when Makoto complained about scraped knees like they were some big deal, while Haruki's body treated a cough like a death sentence.
Still… he loved those stories. Loved that his brother never stopped including him.
His parents tried in their own awkward ways too. His mom filled his shelves with novels. "If you can't go outside, then at least your mind can," she'd say, smiling like she wasn't hiding tears. His dad was quieter. He just installed a secondhand console beside Haruki's bed and muttered, "This should keep you busy when it hurts too much."
They never said the truth out loud. That they couldn't fix him. That every day was borrowed time.
And yet Haruki held onto those things stories, games, gifts like lifelines. Because in them, he was free.
Free to dream.
Free to hope.
Free to believe that maybe just maybe the ceiling wasn't the end of his story.
It happened on a normal day. The kind of boring, quiet day Haruki thought would stretch on forever.
Makoto was sitting by his bed, waving his arms around like a maniac while ranting about his soccer game. He always acted like every missed goal was the end of the world.
"I swear, if that ref wasn't blind" Makoto kicked the leg of Haruki's bed for emphasis.
Haruki chuckled weakly. "Yeah, yeah, blame the ref. Classic loser move."
"Shut up!" Makoto threw a pillow at him. Haruki ducked or tried to. His weak body barely shifted, but the pillow still missed. Both brothers laughed. For a second, the room felt… normal.
Their parents were in the hallway again. Voices low, sharp. Arguing about bills, medicine, and all the things Haruki pretended not to hear. He hated that sound more than the beeping machines.
Then it happened.
A cough. Just one at first.
Then another. And another.
His chest burned. His vision blurred. The coughs turned violent, tearing through him like knives.
"Haru?!" Makoto's voice cracked. He jumped up, grabbing Haruki's hand. "Hey! Stay with me, okay? Don't don't do this!"
The machines shrieked. The steady beeps went wild. Red lights flashed.
His mother burst into the room. "Haruki!" She stumbled forward, face pale, eyes wide with panic. His father swore under his breath, already shouting for the doctors.
The ceiling spun above him. His lungs refused to pull in air. The world tilted, voices fading into static.
Makoto's grip was warm, trembling. "Don't close your eyes! Please, Haru!"
But Haruki… he felt strangely calm.
So this is it, huh? he thought, staring at the white ceiling he'd hated all his life. Figures. Of course the last thing I see would be a stupid ceiling.
The pain dulled. His body felt heavy, like sinking into deep water. His family's voices blurred together shouts, cries, desperation.
Sorry, Makoto… Mom, Dad…
His eyes slipped shut.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
No ceiling.
That was the first thing Haruki noticed.
When his eyes opened again, there was no sterile white plaster, no blinking fluorescent lights, no glow-in-the-dark stickers clinging above him.
Instead there was a sky.
But not a blue sky. Not even a cloudy one.
This sky was blood-red, torn apart by streaks of violet lightning that forked across the heavens like veins.
Broken chunks of stone floated in the air as if gravity had given up, some the size of houses, others drifting like pebbles. On the horizon, an upside-down castle hovered in the air, its spires glowing faintly like dying embers.
Haruki's heart skipped. His mind scrambled for logic hallucination? Dream? Some kind of weird anesthesia effect? But then… he felt it.
The air.
It wasn't stale, recycled hospital air that smelled faintly of bleach. It was sharp, metallic, tinged with smoke and ozone. His lungs filled full, completely full for the first time in his life.
He froze. His hands trembled as he pressed a palm against his chest. No wheezing. No stabbing pain. His heart hammered, not weak and irregular, but strong. Alive.
Slowly, almost afraid it would vanish, he sat up. Then he stood.
He stood.
His knees didn't shake. His legs didn't collapse. His vision didn't blur.
"I… I can move?" His voice cracked. He raised his hands, staring at them. Pale, slender fingers. But steady. Solid. Strong.
Tears stung his eyes. Not from weakness, not from pain but from something he hadn't felt in sixteen years.
Freedom.
He laughed. Actually laughed, loud and shaky, clutching his stomach as if the sound itself was unreal. He took one step, then another, then another. His feet struck the cracked black soil beneath him, and still he didn't fall.
He broke into a run. A messy, awkward run, arms flailing, like a child learning for the first time. The wind rushed against his face, cool and fierce, and his lungs drank it in greedily. No coughing. No collapsing.
"I'm running…" His voice broke, choked with tears. "I'm really… running!"
For sixteen years, he'd dreamed of this moment. Dreamed of moving without chains, of living without ceilings. And now, somehow, impossibly… it was real.
But the world around him didn't care about his miracle.
Because the ground suddenly trembled beneath his feet.
A distant roar echoed across the red horizon deep, guttural, inhuman.
The hairs on Haruki's neck rose. His joy froze mid-laugh, replaced by cold fear. He spun, scanning the landscape. Jagged cliffs. Floating stones. Cracks in the earth glowing faintly with molten light.
This was no dream. And this world wasn't safe.
A sharp chime exploded in Haruki's head, making him flinch. A glowing blue window popped into existence right in front of his face, words etched in floating light.
[System Initialization Complete.]
Classification: F-Rank.
Condition: Pathetic.
"…Excuse me?" Haruki blinked. "Did that thing just call me pathetic?"
[Affirmative.]
Another window flickered to life.
System Zero has been assigned to you.
Note: I would've preferred literally anyone else.
Haruki's jaw dropped. "Hey! What do you mean anyone else?!"
[Correction: Anyone else with functioning stats above the level of damp tissue paper.]
"…" Haruki stared at the glowing text. "Okay, wow. I didn't realize my starter tutorial came with insults."
[Correction again: These aren't insults. They're facts. Congratulations, by the way you've survived approximately five minutes in Driath without being eaten. New personal record.]
Haruki slapped a hand over his face. "I literally just got here! Shouldn't I get, I don't know, a welcome bonus? Maybe a sword? A potion? Something?"
[Welcome bonus granted.]
Another window popped up.
Reward: One (1) sarcastic System companion.
Value: Priceless.
"…I hate you already."
[Mutual.]
Haruki groaned. "What even are you?"
[Designation: System Zero. Purpose: To guide, mock, and occasionally prevent your pathetic demise.]
"'Occasionally'?" Haruki's voice cracked. "That's not very reassuring!"
[Reassurance costs extra. Please insert emotional support DLC.]
"…" Haruki squinted at the glowing text. "Yup. Definitely hate you."
Before he could argue further, the ground rumbled again. Pebbles bounced against the cracked earth. The air vibrated with a low, monstrous growl.
Haruki froze. "…What was that?"
[Oh, nothing major. Just the sound of your early, gruesome death approaching.]
"WHAT?!"
[Congratulations! A Level 5 Banting has taken an interest in you.]
Suggested Strategies: Run, scream, or offer yourself as a chew toy.
Haruki's eyes widened. "B-B-Banting?! What the hell is a Banting?!"
[Dimensional predator. Eight claws. Too many eyes. Tendency: Biting.]
"Not helping!"
The growl deepened into a roar that rattled Haruki's bones. Shadows loomed across the ground.
System Zero chimed cheerfully:
[Tutorial Objective: Survive. Failure condition: Death. Timer: Thirty seconds.]
"…This is the worst tutorial ever."
[Accurate.]
Haruki turned slowly. And then he saw it.
From the shadow of a shattered cliff, the monster emerged.
Haruki's breath caught.
It was huge easily twice the size of a truck. Its body was a writhing mix of bone and scale, like something had mashed together a centipede and a wolf and then given up halfway.
Eight claws gouged the ground as it moved. Its mouth split open into too many teeth, and its eyes gods, it had so many glowed red like burning coals.
The Banting roared. The sound wasn't just loud. It was wrong. It rattled Haruki's skull, made his stomach twist, like a thousand voices screaming all at once.
Haruki stumbled back. "What the hell is that?!"
[Reminder: That is your tutorial boss. Estimated survival rate: 0.001%.]
"YOU COULD'VE WARNED ME SOONER!"
[Warning delivered. User ignored. Typical.]
The Banting lunged.
Its claw, bigger than Haruki's entire body, came crashing down. Instinct screamed at him to run, but his legs moved on their own hands raised to block.
And then light.
Blue fire burst around his arms, metal blooming from his skin like living armor. In an instant, gauntlets of glowing steel encased his hands, etched with shifting runes.
The claw slammed into him.
Haruki braced for bones to snap, for blood to spill but the gauntlets caught it. Energy rippled through them, absorbing and redirecting the impact. The force still sent him flying, rolling across the cracked ground, but.
He wasn't broken.
He gasped, staring at his trembling hands. "I… blocked it?!"
[Shocking. An F-Rank actually lasted a single hit. Updating your status from 'pathetic' to 'barely pathetic.']
Haruki gritted his teeth. "Shut up…"
The Banting roared again, furious, and charged. Haruki's body screamed at him to run, but for once he didn't.
Because for the first time in his life, he wasn't fragile. He wasn't powerless.
His fists clenched, the gauntlets pulsing with light. "If I can fight… then I will fight!"
He dashed forward. Clumsy, reckless, but faster than he'd ever moved before. The gauntlet in his right hand shifted, its metal elongating into a jagged blade mid-swing. He slashed wildly steel scraping across one of the beast's eyes.
The Banting shrieked, staggering back, blood sizzling like acid as it splattered the ground.
Haruki's chest heaved. His arm burned from the recoil. But his lips curled into a grin.
"I… I actually hurt it."
[Correction: You irritated it. Now it's going to kill you harder.]
"Not helping!"
The Banting's many eyes locked on him. It screeched and charged, claws tearing through the ground.
Haruki planted his feet, gauntlets glowing brighter with every heartbeat. Fear gnawed at him, but underneath it—something else burned.
Hope.
"This isn't a hospital bed anymore…" he growled, eyes blazing. "This is my world now!"
The monster's shadow swallowed him whole. Haruki roared back, lunging forward with everything he had
And as claw met steel, the world exploded in light.